With a Little Help From My Friends – A Masterpiece of Blue Eyed Soul

Hot Stamper Pressings of Classic Rock Albums Available Now

UPDATE 2026

This is an old commentary for With a Little Help from My Friends from 2017 that we think still holds up.

This album may be a classic and Cocker hard to beat, but it is very hard to find in clean condition. Iit should be more popular with audiophiles, but for whatever reason it isn’t, which means we can only spend so much time and money finding and buying them for our shootouts. We did our last one in 2025, but our next one will be many years from now.

We just finished our first shootout in over FIVE [2012 or so] years for the album and were SHOCKED by how amazing the best copies can sound, even better than we remember them from last time around. Turn this one up good and loud and you’ll have Joe Cocker in all his raspy glory belting out With A Little Help From My Friends right in your very own listening room!

Blue-Eyed Soul doesn’t get much better than this. Cocker and his band chose SUPERB material for this album, including Dave Mason’s Feelin’ Alright; two of Dylan’s best, Just Like A Woman and I Shall Be Released; and of course the wonderful title track by no less than Joe’s fellow Brits Lennon and McCartney. The backing band features many great musicians including giants such as Jimmy Page and Stevie Winwood. No one’s making records like this anymore, not with this kind of musical and songwriting talent anyway.

(more…)

Hot Stamper Note Taking – What You Need to Know

Basic Concepts and Realities Explained

Finding Hot Stampers is all about doing shootouts for as many different pressings of the same title as you can lay your hands on, the more the merrier.

The kind of notes we take can be seen below. 4×6 Post-its work great for this purpose, using one per side. We go through thousands of them every year.

Without clear notes on your records about exactly what you heard as you played them — good, bad, or otherwise — you cannot possibly keep track of which pressings have the qualities you were listening for, and to what degree.

Extensive notes like the ones you see below are a must. Here is what I had to say about a copy of Rubber Soul that impressed the hell out of me at the time. It went right into our Top Shelf section (current population: ten). Reviews for more 3/3 pressings we’ve posted to the blog can be found here.

Other reviews with post-its can be found here. (We also make every effort to be very specific about the shortcomings of the audiophile pressings we review, which is why we started to reproduce our notes for their reviews when they are available.)

(more…)

The Recordings of Steely Dan – These Two Didn’t Make the Grade

More of the Music of Steely Dan

Gold, the album on the left, is from 1982 and was mastered by Robert Ludwig. It’s an OK record, nothing more, and offers few of the thrills that the real albums do when they’ve been mastered and pressed right. (To my knowledge, never by Robert Ludwig.)

The soundtrack album below it might interest collectors, but it has forgettable music with barely passable sound.

Steely Dan is one of our favorite bands here at Better Records.

We’ve written more about their albums than any other group’s outside of The Beatles, with more than 60 reviews and commentaries to date.

Our advice: Stick with the seven real albums that were released between 1972 and 1980. Each and every one of them is a brilliant work of art in its own way. For audiophiles, it just doesn’t get any better than Steely Dan.

(more…)

Grand Funk – We’re An American Band

More Rock Classics

  • A vintage yellow vinyl pressing that earned solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER from start to finish
  • Both sides are full-bodied, lively and present, with a solid bottom end
  • More important, here is all the rock and roll energy that would simply be missing in action on any reissue made these days
  • It’s tough to find good Grand Funk sound on audiophile-quality playing surfaces, but these sides did the trick
  • Marks in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these Classic Rock records – there simply is no way around them if the superior sound of vintage analog is important to you
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Sonically, the record was sharp and detailed and the band’s playing was far tighter and more accomplished… The album’s title song, an autobiographical account of life on the road written and sung by Brewer, was released in advance of the album and became a gold-selling number one hit, Grand Funk’s first really successful single.”
  • If you’re a fan of the band, this title from 1973 is clearly one of their best, and unquestionably one of their best sounding

If you don’t already know, take our word for it: not many copies of this record will have much in the way of good sound. Grand Funk was not a band marketed to audiophiles. Their recordings tend to be crude and compressed, more radio-friendly than home-stereo-friendly.

(more…)

Free / Fire and Water on the Second Label

More British Blues Rock

  • Fire and Water, here with very good Hot Stamper sound on both sides of this copy of the band’s third release – exceptionally quiet vinyl for this title too
  • The best copy we played in our shootout pressed on the second label earned these 1.5/1.5 grades — most won’t sound nearly this good
  • We guarantee there is more space, richness, presence, and performance energy on this copy than others you’ve heard or you get your money back – it’s as simple as that
  • Top 100 and 4 1/2 stars: “From Paul Kossoff’s exquisite and tasteful guitar work, to Paul Rodgers’ soulful vocals, this was a group that was easily worthy of the mantle worn by Cream, Blind Faith, or Derek & the Dominos.”
  • This is our pick for Free’s best sounding album. Roughly 150 other listings for the best recording by an artist or group can be found here on the blog.

This is one of our favorite recordings and a member of our Top 100, but it only works when you get the right pressing.

This is the sound of a real rock ‘n’ roll band — no gimmicks, no tricks — just guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.

(more…)

Dave Mason – Dave Mason Is Alive

More of the Music of Dave Mason

  • Dave Mason Is Alive makes its Hot Stamper debut with solid Double Plus (A++) grades or BETTER throughout this early Blue Thumb pressing
  • The bottom end is strong and solid, the tonality is balanced and natural and there’s real openness and transparency up top
  • Richness, warmth, Tubey Magic, and clarity are important to the sound, and here you will find plenty of all four

(more…)

The King James Version – What to Listen For

Hot Stamper Pressings of Large Group Jazz Recordings Available Now

Unlike most Direct to Disc recordings, this album actually contains real music worth listening to — but only when the pressing lets the energy of the musicians through, with actual fidelity to the sounds of the real instruments. Brass without bite is boring. Drummers who are too delicate in their drumming will put you to sleep.

Many copies of this album will do exactly that, which is a real shame. During our shootout, the more we played the good copies, the more we appreciated the music these guys were making. They were swinging, a big group of top quality players totally in the groove. When it’s played well, and the sound is as good as it is here, there’s nothing boring about these Big Band Jazz Classics. The music works. It swings. If you like the kind of big band recordings Basie made — and who doesn’t — you will find much to like here.

What to Listen For

No matter what copy you have, when you play it notice how the brass in the center of the soundfiield sounds so different from the brass on either side, where, obviously, closer mics allow their solos to be picked up and mixed more easily. There are lovely trumpet solos in the left channel and a baritone sax solo in the right that have amazingly realistic fidelity. Close your eyes and those instruments are RIGHT THERE.

One thing Sheffield got right is tonally-correct, hi-fidelity brass in a real acoustic space. (The latter is where For Duke fails so miserably, although no one ever seems to notice or bother to write about it. To me that dead acoustic is like fingernails on a blackboard, completely inappropriate to the sound.)

What to Watch Out For

As a rule two areas are especially lacking: there is a noticeable lack of presence on most copies, causing the brass to get stuck in the speakers and lose its bite; and, every bit as bad, the sound is often just plain compressed, lacking energy and life.

The musicians on most copies just don’t seem to be giving it their all.

(more…)

U2 – Boy (UK)

More Rock and Pop

  • You’ll find solid Double Plus (A++) grades or close to them throughout this early UK Island label pressing of Boy
  • Note that the best of the UK pressings, though dramatically better than the wrong domestic LPs, were not competitive with the better domestic pressings of the album
  • The sound on side one is big, open, rich, full-bodied and spacious, with the performers front and center (as well as left and right), and side two is not far behind in all those areas
  • 4 stars: “From the outset, U2 went for the big message – every song on their debut album Boy sounds huge, with oceans of processed guitars cascading around Bono’s impassioned wail. It was an inspired combination of large, stadium-rock beats and post-punk textures.”

Recordings from the 80s are always a bit tricky in terms of sound quality, and U2 is not a band we have ever associated with the highest audiophile-quality sonics. We’ve been through quite a number of their albums now, including War, The Unforgettable Fire and The Joshua Tree.

While Demo Disc sound may never be in the cards for these guys, over the years we’ve stumbled upon (stumbling being the only way to go about it) pressings that are much better at communicating their music than others, and certainly a great deal better than any Heavy Vinyl reissue or digital source.

It’s not often that we come across audiophile-quality sound for U2’s early titles. The average copy of this record sounds as dry and flat as a cassette. Not this one, or to be more precise, not this pressing.

(more…)

The Band – The Last Waltz

More Roots Rock LPs

  • The Last Waltz, here with seriously good Double Plus (A++) sound or close to it on all SIX sides of these vintage Palm Tree pressings
  • Sides two, three, four, five and six are rich, dynamic and natural sounding, with low end weight, midrange smoothness and powerful, punchy bass, and side one is not far behind in all those areas
  • Features an A-list of brilliant artists, including Van Morrison, Ringo Star, Joni Mitchell, and Muddy Waters, just to name a few, and it’s surely the reason that this record is so hard to find and so expensive when you do find it
  • 4 stars: “It’s the Band’s ‘special guests’ who really make this set stand out — Muddy Waters’ ferocious version of ‘Mannish Boy’ would have been a wonder from a man half his age, Van Morrison sounds positively joyous on ‘Caravan,’ Neil Young and Joni Mitchell do well for their Canadian brethren, and Bob Dylan’s closing set finds him in admirably loose and rollicking form.”
  • If you’re a fan of The Band, and what audiophile wouldn’t be?, this triple album from 1978 belongs in your collection

(more…)

The B-52s / Wild Planet

More New Wave Rock

  • Wild Planet returns to the site for the first time in years, here with INCREDIBLE Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them throughout this vintage Warner Bros. pressing – remarkably quiet vinyl too
  • The sound is lively, punchy, and powerful – with all due respect, it should murder whatever copies you may have
  • Both of these sides are bigger and richer than practically all of what we played, and they also have more vocal presence and hard-rockin’ energy, two qualities that we found to be key to the best sounding pressings
  • 4 1/2 stars: “While Wild Planet is not the rarefied wonder their first platter is, it’s still darn good. The best songs here are ‘Private Idaho,’ a wonderfully jittery number that employs a variant on the famous melodic snippet from the Twilight Zone theme music, and ‘Devil in My Car,’ a delightfully loopy hoot that lays the craziness on very thickly.”

(more…)